A board game is a game that involves counters or pieces moved or placed on a pre-marked surface or “board”, according to a set of rules. Games can be based on pure strategy, chance (e.g. rolling dice), or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal that a player aims to achieve. Board games have been around since ancient times, with the earliest known board games going back to as early as the 3500 BCE, in both Egypt and Persia.
There are many different types and styles of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, as with checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, as with Cluedo. Rules can range from the very simple, as in Tic-tac-toe, to those describing a game universe in great detail, as in Dungeons & Dragons (although most of the latter are role-playing games where the board is secondary to the game, serving to help visualize the game scenario.